<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>stars in your eyes when we're halfway there by cyanica</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27262438">stars in your eyes when we're halfway there</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanica/pseuds/cyanica'>cyanica</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>maybe i just took too much cough medicine [whumptober 2020] [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Banter, Bucky Barnes &amp; Sam Wilson Friendship, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Fever, Fluff, Forehead Kisses, Humor, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Pre-Slash, Pre-The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV), Protective Sam Wilson, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Sick Bucky Barnes, Sickfic, Stomach Ache, Whump, Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:46:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,479</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27262438</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanica/pseuds/cyanica</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam caressed his hand over Bucky’s warm head, sweeping the hair from his face. He pressed the warmth of his lips to Bucky’s forehead, a gentle, familiar touch that willed away all the hurt, at least for the moment. </p><p>“You know you’re gonna get sick from me now, right?” Bucky mumbled from within the sweet haze of the radiant fever numbing his mind along with the comfort of the blankets.</p><p>Or Bucky has the stomach flu, and Sam really is a good bro (or maybe more than that).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>maybe i just took too much cough medicine [whumptober 2020] [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947775</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>188</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>stars in your eyes when we're halfway there</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>just another plotless fluffy(?) sickfic ;c. </p><p>tw for mentions of vomiting.</p><p>set recently after endgame. </p><p>whumptober prompt day 21: i don't feel so well, infection</p><p>title from 'beautiful people' - ed sheeran</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Hey, man. How you doing in here?" The shadowy silhouette of Sam was peering his head through the door, making Bucky wince into his pillow as the light shot daggers throughout his pounding head.</p><p> </p><p>"Shit," he mumbled with unfamiliar defeat at the confessions, curling his arms around his churning stomach from underneath the blankets Pepper had tucked him into a few hours ago. In the grand scheme of things, the stomach flu wasn't as bad as genocidal, apocalyptic aliens and their array of world-ending disasters that kept coming one after another (including <em> dying </em> for fuck's sake), but here, lying in the Starks’ guest room with sweaty hair mattered against his feverish skin, an agonizing stomach ache, and a trash can by the bed that smelled of sickly vomit and bile, Bucky allowed himself to bask in his misery, curling up into a tiny ball underneath the thick blanket covers as if to disappear from the Earth entirely.</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah, I'll bet," Sam huffed, stepping into the room from where he'd been leaning against the doorway. He stopped by the bed, taking in the sad, pathetic bundle of blankets hunched in around itself and said, "you look it." </p><p> </p><p>Bucky peered at him through the eye underneath his damp hair, the other hidden behind his face, smooshed into the pillow. </p><p> </p><p>"Thanks," he said, trying his best to convey a cool, apathetic tone that voiced all his internal opinions about Sam Wilson's lack of empathy right now, but the sound from his throat was that of a painful rasp within his vocal cords.</p><p> </p><p>Sam furrowed his brows, and placed the coolness of his palm to Bucky's forehead, brushing away the stray strands plaster to his forehead. Bucky hummed instinctively at the serene cool sootheness that dulled the ache, at least a little bit.</p><p> </p><p>"Damn, you're really burning up.”</p><p> </p><p>"And now you're callin' me hot, Wilson?" Bucky was really glad that the fever was hiding all evidence of rosiness in his cheeks, just so he didn’t need to make up an excuse with his already tried, aching head that would’ve sounded quite pathetic otherwise. "Mixed signals are a helluva way to mess with a guy's heart, you know."</p><p> </p><p>Sam scoffed, rolling his eyes and tried to pull the covers away from his friends face, yet Bucky held onto them with an inhuman vengeance for someone so sick. “I'm saying your fever is high enough to fry an omelette, Casanova."</p><p> </p><p>Bucky shuttered a feverish shiver at the thought. His insides began to ache, nausea rising from his stomach as his attempts to repress it slipped away. "Don't talk about food," he moaned, and slid away from Sam's hand to once again bury his face in the rosewood-smelling sheets.</p><p> </p><p>"Yikes, okay," Sam seemed to get the message and withdrew his hand almost comically. Though earlier, Sam had been the one to hold all his ‘girly, diva hair’ back from his face as he threw up into the trash can not three hours ago. Normally, Bucky would be more defiant against <em> Sam of all people </em> seeing him like that – and like <em> this </em> now – but his touch had been kind, his words familiar and gentle. It had been enough to lull him to a dreamless sleep when the pain was really bad, and Bucky liked that about him.</p><p> </p><p>But Bucky would rather blame his sudden liking towards Sam on the feverish delirium. Yeah that was it, <em> totally.</em></p><p> </p><p>(He could literally hear his subconscious mockingly laugh at him through an abstract fever dream somewhere close to the surface of his hazy mind, and promptly told it <em> shut up.</em>)</p><p> </p><p>“How are you even sick anyway?” Sam asked, jarring Bucky from his thoughts. Sam was walking away into the ensuite, cleaning up the mess in the trash can, filling the bedroom with the sound of running water that made Bucky think of cooling waterfalls and glassy rivers he’d run around in with his sisters back home, back when things had been simpler. His mind seemed to drift a little too far back into the things Bucky would much rather repress whenever it was too fuzzy, like it was now.</p><p> </p><p>“Steve never got sick." Sam then added with a quieter voice that maybe Bucky would have reciprocated in the light of the recent <em> extraordinary </em> events – but right now, he was too tired to think about things like time travel, the future, the past and the indefinite world that they now lived in without Steve Rogers.</p><p> </p><p>Bucky scoffed into the sheets instead, thinking of Brooklyn and it’s alleyways, their little apartment block, and how it always smelled of cough syrup – but in a familiarly bittersweet way. </p><p> </p><p>“The <em> fuck </em> he didn't,” he said, internally rolling his eyes so that the movement didn’t make his stomach twist itself inside out again. “Every month it was like pneumonia or pharyngitis or what-ever-the-fuck had a vendetta against the guy. Flu season was nothing but phlegm and snot and barf, and <em> I </em> was the one who stuck by his sickly ass –"</p><p> </p><p>"– I meant <em> after </em> the serum," Sam interrupted, coming out of the bathroom to lay the trash can back down on the bedside. He also held out a glass of water that Bucky eyed suspiciously.</p><p> </p><p>"Oh,” he shrugged as well as he could from underneath the blankets. “I don't know. For me – It's not like it makes me invincible." All he’d ever really understood about the serum was that it kept him alive after he’d fallen from the sky, healed his wounds time and time again, and made it impossible to get drunk (something that he unfortunately learned during their post-apocalyptic celebrations in Wakanda). He’d been sick before, or at least he thinks he has been, from within the hazy memories of his time with HYDRA where everything always smelled of blood and gun power – though those memories always were a little less reliable, or rather the ones he'd been trying to forget ever since he relearned how to remember. </p><p> </p><p>“Maybe I got a bad batch of the stuff. It was different for Steve, I think.” He said as a meek explanation towards the thing he barely understood about himself.</p><p> </p><p>Sam nodded absently, not pressing the topic further, and instead held out the glass towards Bucky’s face where Bucky’s hands clenched the blankets tightly around his chin. "Are you up for drinking something?"</p><p> </p><p>Bucky brought the blanket up to his nose, hiding his face towards the pillow. "Fuck no," was the muffled sound that left his scratchy throat. It was raw and sore, hurting whenever he breathed and it properly, <em> definitely </em> needed the water to soothe the ache away, but Bucky just knew that the water wouldn’t stay down if he were to drink it any time soon, and he’d rather not risk vomiting all over Pepper’s poor bedsheets.</p><p> </p><p>"Even just a sip?” Sam sighed with no real annoyance behind it, verging his tone towards something that could almost be concerned, yet covered up in the typical nonchalant lightheartedness in his voice. “You're gonna die of dehydration, and then Steve would be real pissed that I let his best friend kick it on my watch, <em> especially </em> since he left not <em> two days ago </em>. There's no babysitter's tip if the baby doesn't remain alive, and well, I need that extra bonus to buy a new car after the last one got totalled by some maniac."</p><p> </p><p>"So funny.” Bucky mumbled grumpily, peering at Sam through slitted eyes that were his best portrayal of murderous intent for someone currently curled up like a kitten in the sheets. “It's been nine years, get over it."</p><p> </p><p>Sam rolled his eyes again, then went as far as to actually speak as if he were talking to a stubborn child refusing to take their cough medicine, which Bucky was absolutely, undeniably <em> not in any way, shape or form. </em>"C'mon, I'll see if Pepper has those hydralyte ice pops –"</p><p> </p><p>"I <em> will </em> throw up on you, Wilson." </p><p> </p><p>Sam caressed his hand over Bucky’s warm forehead again, sweeping the hair from his face. "Ah, such promises,” he teased contently, purely just to rival Bucky’s own spite, and relish in the other man’s fever-hazed glassy, yet unbearably defiant eyes. </p><p> </p><p>He left to stand up, yet not before pressing the warmth of his lips to Bucky’s forehead, a gentle, familiar touch that willed away all the hurt, at least for the moment. It was perhaps seven parts spite, three parts endearment, but that was okay with Bucky. He didn't seem to mind.</p><p> </p><p>“I'll be back with some ibu to get that fever down, as well. If you die while I'm gone, I'll kill you."</p><p> </p><p>“You know you’re gonna get sick from me now, right?” Bucky mumbled from within the sweet haze of the radiating fever numbing his mind along with the comfort of the blankets, Sam's lips a gentle phantom against his flesh. </p><p> </p><p>“For you, Buck, that was worth it.”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>